Sidewalk Labs’ smart city master plan can’t happen without a new LRT: CEO

Thestar.com
March 8, 2019
Donovan Vincent

The head of Sidewalk Labs says his firm won’t be proposing a smart city project without including plans calling for the extension of the LRT near the waterfront.
Dan Doctoroff, CEO of the Google sister firm, spoke to the Star’s editorial board Thursday to explain what he anticipates will be in the master plan for the data-driven tech city, a proposal he said Sidewalk Labs hopes to unveil in the spring.

CEO of Sidewalk Labs Daniel Doctoroff speaks to the Toronto Star editorial board on Thursday.

Doctoroff said the master plan will envision a “beta site” on 12 acres of land called Quayside and a new Google headquarters and “innovation hub” just south on a small parcel of undeveloped land in the Port Lands.

Sidewalk has previously stated that Quayside would be a mixed-use, mostly residential development that would feature 12 new buildings made of timber, housing about 5,000 residents.

Doctoroff added it “will be important under any scenario” to extend the light rail to the area and that his firm is prepared to help fund that.

When asked during the meeting with the Star if the beta development can go forward without an LRT, Doctoroff answered: “I would not do that, no.”

In documents originally leaked to the Star last month it was revealed that Sidewalk Labs wants to provide upfront financing for projects including a new LRT line, and get paid back through development charges. Development charges are funds developers pay that typically go to government coffers to fund projects such as
roads and transit.

“We are offering to help finance it (an LRT) because it doesn’t seem to be in the cards otherwise. But I do not believe this area can develop if there is not mass transit through Quayside -- it doesn’t make any sense. You’re just going to do things the regular way,” Doctoroff told the editorial board.

“I don’t want to be critical of what’s happening on the waterfront, but you let traditional market forces do it on their own and you’re going to get what we get down here,” he said, referring to the dearth of transit in the area east of Yonge St. and in the Port Lands.

Doctoroff said Sidewalk is “open to other alternatives” to being reimbursed for paying upfront for the LRT and other “critical” infrastructure needed for the smart city project.

“If we can find a way to make it pay for itself, that is pretty compelling. But if somebody else has a better idea it doesn’t have to be us,” he said.

The LRT could run from Union Station, east along Queens Quay or from the east harbour into the Port Lands, he suggested.

“It can be done in phases, but you’ve got to plan for the whole thing holistically or you’re wasting your time,” Doctoroff said.

He told the editorial board the beta site would serve as a beginning, a test launch pad for technology and innovative ideas that could then later be spread by other parties -- developers, government, innovation firms for example -- to the rest of the eastern waterfront.

In terms of Quayside and the Port Lands as a whole, Doctoroff said the plan is for Sidewalk to build only on 10 per cent of the land.

Sidewalk has said it wants to employ data collection -- sensors could reduce congestion, for example, by detecting pedestrian, vehicle and cyclist traffic -- to improve everyday life for its future residents and those who’ll work in the area or pass through.

“Quayside is where we want to develop and build these buildings and try out these innovations, and so we spent a lot of time last year trying to get that right and make sure that plan is 100 per cent perfect,” Sidewalk Labs spokesperson Keerthana Rang, who joined Doctoroff at the editorial board meeting, said.

“Quayside is where we would develop these ideas. The eastern waterfront (is where) we’re more of partner with government and take what is successful in Quayside and bring across the eastern waterfront,” she added.

Doctoroff took exception to the Star story about the leak, saying the headline left the impression Sidewalk has been hiding the fact it’s considering plans beyond Quayside.

The leaked documents show Sidewalk wants to be the “innovation manager for the entirety of the eastern waterfront,” setting design and innovation guidelines for “vertical and horizontal development” including a “radical rezoning” of the entire arena,” which Sidewalk says is needed to “achieve our economics.”

Doctoroff told the editorial board the notion of broadening into the eastern waterfront was mentioned several times in partner Waterfront Toronto’s original request for proposals (RFP), Sidewalk’s response to the RFP, city of Toronto documents and the Plan Development Agreement signed this summer between Waterfront
Toronto and Sidewalk.

These documents were issued in 2017 and last year.

But Doctoroff was asked at the editorial board why the site plan presentation for the project, released this past November, mentioned Quayside 10 times yet contained no reference to the eastern waterfront.

“We tend not to present half-baked ideas. I don’t like to promise things we don’t have any intention of doing,” he said.

In terms of data collection, a highly controversial aspect of the project, Doctoroff said data is collected on individual citizens all the time “all over the place.”

He said it’s like the “wild west” when it comes to data collection in the public realm. He continued that analogy, comparing a third party “civic data trust” Sidewalk wants to see established to control and oversee data collected at Quayside and beyond, to the “sheriff.”

Overall, Doctoroff said he remains “optimistic” that once the public understands his firm’s project they’ll see a lot they’ll like.